Targeting America, 10 years later
The man who…
The monster who brought horror to our shores is, at long last, dead. His body is decomposing somewhere in the North Arabian Sea. Which means that—unless he stashed away one last videotape, just in case—we won’t have to listen to Osama bin Laden gloating on the 10th anniversary of his murderous deeds.
That’s good news, and worth a moment’s thankfulness.
And for bad news, there’s this: Some of what bin Laden said on his earlier tapes is still distressingly on target—and in ways even he couldn’t have imagined.
Consider, in particular, the bin Laden tape from autumn of 2004. It was the first video message he’d put out in nearly three years, and it’s the one where he said that his goal was to bleed the United States to death—economically. To make us spend so much of our national treasure trying to chase him down, trying to defeat him, that we’d eventually collapse into bankruptcy.
Nor was it especially difficult, he boasted back then, to keep us on the hunt.
“All that we have to do,” he said, “is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written ‘al-Qaida’ in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations.”
Now, by 2004, you’ll recall, we were already running into trouble in Iraq. Iraq was the extra war—the unnecessary war—on top of the war in Afghanistan. Iraq was the war justified in part, if never actually motivated, by some vague hint of connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and Sept. 11.
A “piece of cloth.”
By 2004, you’ll recall, we were spending billions of dollars every week on our two wars, all of it borrowed money. All of it on the national credit card.
And we’d cut taxes. Again.
It’s hard to have a strong economy when you’re that deep in debt; bin Laden was on to something. And since 2004? Our unpaid bills have only piled up. We’re talking trillions now.
But here’s the part Osama bin Laden couldn’t have predicted: He couldn’t have predicted that politicians of a certain stripe—politicians right here in America—would use that enormous debt as an excuse to weaken us even further. To dismantle programs they’d never liked to begin with. To shrink the government, in the famous phrase, until it was small enough to drown it in the bathtub.
Cutting back on education, and scientific research—the kinds of things that grow an economy. Cutting back on maintaining our roads and rails and bridges and ports—the kinds of things that support an economy. Cutting back on protecting investors, and protecting consumers—the kinds of things that build confidence in an economy.
And eventually—inevitably?—the threat of default unless they got their way. They were willing to crash the economy.
Ideology was their engine, but the debt gave them their opening, their cover story.
Remember: This was no foreign force causing us such harm—these were Americans. American leaders. We’re doing all this to ourselves! Not in his wildest dreams could Osama bin Laden have counted on this much help.
Ten years after 9/11, the monster is gone.
But the terrorists are winning.
Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execc.com.
Sep 10, 2011 at 12:01 a.m.
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I would like to point out that the user Iriss , copies and pastes "its" rhetorical garbage on every single post.
With almost NEVER any factual information in its posts , I would please urge all of you to continue to call this unintelligent person out , every single chance you get.
While IRISS likes to encourage ignoring posters "it" disagrees with , I would encourage you all to continue vigorous debate with all and any posters on these sites. Even the most silly and unitelligent. While there are some very intelligent folks I disagree with on here constantly and vigorously, I respect MOST of you and enjoy the opinions.
Iriss if you really want people to just agree with your ridiculous ideas and cant handle the challenge of REAL and VIGOROUS debate, I suggest that you start your own blog, and get out of here because you rarely if ever bring anything to the discussion.
Unlike Iriss, this will be the first and only time I ever am childish enough to copy and paste a post to every thread. But it was time someone called this embicile to the table.
Sep 9, 2011 at 12:53 p.m.
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Thanks Kiwo. I am very aware of the Pearl Harbor ideas as well. It is always nice to see that there are some out there that don't always but the story that is spoonfed. I had a very hard time accepting that there may be several alternative truths or HUGE coverups out there. Once I was able to open my mind it was the beginning of a whole new consciousness for me. I am now free of partisan politics in trghis nation and the 9/11 movement for the truth was a LARGE part of it. Why people just refuse to look around is beyond me, I guess I just like to know as much as I can about the possibilities that we the people are CONSTANTLY lied to by those in power, so they can keep it(their power).
Again thanks for the great discussions that we have, you seem to be one of the few posters with actual independant thought.
Sep 9, 2011 at 1:53 a.m.
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fearand rhetoric:
Your position is similar to what many believe about pearl harbor. In that FDR knew something was up. Not that he had the EXACT details, but many things suggest we had intel that a strike was going to happen there. Of course, many cynics will argue that a strike is what they wanted, because it gave us an easy excuse to go to war. And war, in general, is GREAT for your economy (providing that you WIN, of course).
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To your belief on that idea, some supporting evidence to that would also be that one of KSM's cohorts (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the master mind of the attack, NOT Bin Laden..He was just the financier) was detained in Philippians months before 9/11...They interrogated him (tactics their make water boarding look like a paper cut), and he spilled his guts about the whole plot on the twin towers. The Philippians gave us all the details from the attack that they got from the interrogation, and it was promptly IGNORED! All those stories ARE out there..Just few choose to look at them.
Sep 8, 2011 at 1:06 p.m.
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If you dont get the "manufactured" hate Grandys, then ask yourself why, SPEIFICALLY, these people hate our nation. Do you really believe that these people hate "our freedom" as was advertised by the previous administration?Really?
Then look around the internet, I mean really look. You would be shocked at what you find I think. Of course you can only believe about half of what you read anywhere, but even if only half of what I have found is true, OH MY GOD!!!
Sep 8, 2011 at 10:09 a.m.
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Grandys tell that to the over 500,000 people that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since we invaded those nations on false pretense.
Again, I don't believe that the US completely orchestrated this but I also don't believe that this was just 17 crazy terrorists with boxcutters either. Gerge Bush has a memo in his hands on August 6, 2001 with the quote "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" in his hands while on vacation in Crawford, Texas. And did NOTHING. I personally believe that the governement had an Idea something was coming and did little to prevent it. And had every idea to use whatever it was to go to war in the middle east. I DO NOT believe that they had an idea of the scale of attack , and were somewhat surprised with the size of the attack. There are certain factors that day that really make me ask questions about the level of knowledge the Government had, but the burden of proof is hard. I find the fact that the governemnt was conducting excersises that were similar to the real situation about bombs and planes , made it harder to respond because the officials involved didnt know if it was real or excersise. Little coincidental? Took an awful long time to get fighter jets to scramble and intercept a passenger jet flying at the pentagon dont you think? I would like to think that the country with the most expensive military complex in the world would be able to protect itself from a passenger jet flying at it , especially when the towers in NYC had already been hit, but what do I know?
If we are truly a "free nation" we should research things, and ask tough questions. Of course my heart breaks for the 3000 victims and their families, but wouldnt they want to know if their family members death was helped along by a corrupt US govt? I certainly would!
Sep 7, 2011 at 6:48 p.m.
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fear-
I don't wonder why America is in trouble-
I know-it's from people like you with your mindset. Diogenes is right that you can't argue with a fool and in your case it's impossible to find any rational thoughts to even start a conversation. You're good at calling names and making long senseless rants that in your mind may have some kind of logic. But to most of us they are strange and lack truth and facts.
Sep 7, 2011 at 2:56 a.m.
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good points fear and rhetoric:
I'm not a believer in any of the 9/11 conspiracies (simply because in ANY conspiracy, someone will ALWAYS talk. You can never shut everyone up, or concede something that big, without someone leaking or spilling their guts).
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You are RIGHT on about Bin Laden and Hussein though. We were Bin Ladens best buddy back when our CIA helped arm the Taliban, to defeat the Soviets. We also PASSED UP on Bin laden time and time again before 9/11. Iran wanted him dead just as bad as we did, but we would not let them take him be taken out because we were "enemies" of Iran (another governmnet who we were best buddies with at one time). He was then offered up to us YET AGAIN in Sudan, and ole Bill Clinton was to busy screwing interns to care about it, and just let him walk free.
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Saddam; yet ANOTHER case where we were best buddies at one time. Supplied his regime to the hilt to fight the "evil" Iran. Then he turns bad guy, and were fighting a regime using weapons we supplied to them!
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Now the talk form many on the right is the "EVIL" Iran...NO DOUBT they want to CHARGE in there, and invade...PREEMPTIVE STRIKE baby, because they are such a threat to us...You never know; a whole SWARM of camel jockeys may soon be marching down your street with arms, threatening to take over your neighborhood. It's just BEYOND a joke how we prop these places up, and then make them out to be the next Nazi regime; who is going to go on a world rampage, and how we MUST ACT NOW!
Sep 6, 2011 at 8:51 p.m.
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thats all you have? There's a fool at its best, when you have nothing, say nothing. Pretty smart on your part. Keep tuning in to Faux buddy.
Sep 6, 2011 at 4:46 p.m.
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Previous two posters are prime examples of what this article is all about. Spending BILLIONS of borrowed dollars fihting a faceless nameless enemy. This is an EXCELLENT article. Normally not a big Horowitz fan, but this one is well done.
Try to remember folks, there was no Al-Quaeda before we(US govt) said there was. The CIA trained most of the very terrorists that we fight today, we supplied them weapons and funded their cause when they were fighting the Soviets. Does this sound familiar? The USA also funded Sadaam Huisein's WMD programs and gave hime MOST of the material! When he was fighting Iran.
You weeble wobbled simple minded people can believe that the "terrorists hate our freedom" all you like, but the very reality is that this is a manufacured enemy, plain and simple. These people hate us, because we wanted them to. Our industrial military complex has drained TRILLIONS from the US Govt because of these "terrorists". Doesn't anyone want to ask tough questions anymore? Or are all of you people just willing to be told "we are at WAR" deal with it!
It should make you question the motives of our government under both parties. It should also make you leary of any "official story" of what happened on 9/11. You can call them conspiracies all you like, but there are many very suspect parts of the story that just don't hash out. I am not all in with the theorists, however there is MUCH more to the story than anyone will ever know. Similar to Kennedy, the "magic bullet" just didn't make sense, well there is a whole mess of magic bullets flying everywhere and we cant see the forest through the trees? And people wonder why America is in trouble.
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